Sixteen years have passed since Michael Tarrant and his dangerous son left Mull; years when Biddy and Innis raised their families, Biddy in the conventional marriage she always craved, Innis in a different sort of family life, torn between the her daughters' discontents, her unconsummated love for the schoolmaster Gillies Brown and the solace of her faith.

Then the woman who calls herself Fay Ludlow comes to Mull, and nothing will ever be the same again. Fay is Gavin Tarrant's wife, a woman who has been injured so badly she fears for the safety of the child she carries... A new world is coming in which a sea of waving trees will cover the moorland. And that world will bring the Tarrant men back to Mull for a final confrontation with the Campbell women.